This invention was made with government support under grant DAAD190110509 awarded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The government has certain rights in this invention.
I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to valves. More particularly, this disclosure involves direct-acting servomotor valves that enable high-bandwidth control of cold gas, hot gas, and/or liquids.
II. Description of Related Art
In many applications in which servo control valve systems are utilized, pressurized fluid is typically provided from a high pressure source and transmitted through a load from which the fluid is then exhausted to a low pressure reservoir. The load may, for example, take the form of a double-acting piston operating within a cylinder. The transfer of fluid from one side of the piston to the other within the cylinder causes the piston to move some mechanism to which it is connected.
Conventional servo valves are often linear motion devices. They typically consist of a spool element operated manually or electrically. Typically the spool element is shuttled back and forth within a chamber defined within a valve housing. However, the linear motion of the spool element is not precise, resulting in a decrease in performance. Further, in order to provide an efficient flow system, the valve configurations are often bulky and may increase the cost of the overall linear actuator.
These shortcomings are not intended to be exhaustive, but rather are among many that tend to impair the effectiveness of previously known techniques concerning servo valves; however, those mentioned here are sufficient to demonstrate that the methodologies appearing in the art have not been altogether satisfactory and that a significant need exists for the techniques described and claimed in this disclosure.